The present invention is related to a PC card such as a PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) card which is used for, for instance, an expansion function of a portable computer and a data communication thereof.
As shown in FIG. 10, for example, a conventional PC card apparatus includes a frame 101, a lower cover 102, an upper cover 103, a board 104, and the like. The frame 101 is formed of synthetic resin and the like. The lower cover 102 is made of a metal, and covers a lower surface side of the frame 101. The upper cover 103 is made of a metal, and covers an upper surface side of the frame 101. The board 104 is stored in the frame 101, and various sorts of circuit components are mounted on the board 104. There are many cases that both the lower cover 102 and the upper cover 103 are fastened by employing a screw and the like with respect to the frame 101. On the other hand, this PC card is arranged by having a constant width size. More specifically, a connector 105 is formed on an edge portion of this PC card on a tip side thereof along an insertion direction of this PC card. There are many cases that a width “W” of this tip portion of the PC card is formed without any tolerance size. Normally, however, the tip portion of the PC card is fully occupied by the connector 105 and an elongated portion 101A along the width thereof, while this connector 105 is stored by the elongated portion 101A under such a condition that the elongated portion 101A sandwiches this connector 105 from both side portions thereof. Also, there is no extra space where the upper/lower covers are fastened on tip portion by a screw. As a result, there are many cases that a screw 106 is screwed at a portion which is slightly shifted from the tip portion to a base end portion so as to fix the upper/lower covers.
However, such a PC card in which the upper/lower covers are fixed by using the screw owns a problem. That is, clearances and torsion (twists) are easily made in the tip surface thereof. As a consequence, as indicated in FIG. 11, while a thermo-compression tape 107 is used, another PC card is known in which upper/lower covers are attached up to a tip portion of a frame so as to be fixed thereon.
However, as previously explained, as to the PC card with employment of such a thermo-compression tape, a facility such as a heat source is required in order to perform an adhesive work on the thermo-compression tape 107, which may therefore increase the manufacturing cost. Moreover, in such a type of PC card with employment of this thermo-compression tape, for example, in the case that a component of this PC card is brought into malfunction and the replacement of this component is required, the following works can be hardly carried out. That is, in this work, this thermo-compression tape is stripped, and the PC card is disassembled so as to open the internal construction of the PC card.